Clockwork Princess

that tiny dagger could kill a thing that size!
“Will, Will,” Jem was saying in his ear, his voice urgent, and Will realized he had spoken aloud, and, name of the Angel, the worm’s head was swinging around toward Cecily, its mouth open and vast and lined with teeth—
    Cecily let go of the dagger’s handle and rolled sideways, off the body of the worm. Its jaws missed her by a hairsbreadth and snapped viciously shut on its own body. Black ichor gushed and the worm jerked its head back, a howl like the wail of a banshee erupting from its throat. A massive wound gaped in its side, and gobbets of its own flesh hung from its jaws. As Will stared, Gabriel raised his bow and let an arrow fly.
    It sang home to its target and buried itself in one of the worm’s lidless black eyes. The creature reared back—and then its head sagged forward and it crumpled in on itself, folding up, disappearing as demons did when the life left them.
    Gabriel’s bow fell to the ground with a clatter that Will barely heard. The trampled ground was soaked with blood from the worm’s savaged body. In the midst of it all, Cecy was rising slowly to her feet, wincing, her right wrist twisted at an odd angle.
    Will did not even feel himself begin to run toward her—he realized it only when he was brought up short by Jem’s restraining hand. He turned on his
parabatai
wildly. “
My
sister—
”
    “Your
face
,” replied Jem, with remarkable calm, considering the situation. “You are covered in demon blood, William, and it is burning you. I must give you an
iratze
before the damage cannot be undone.”
    “Let me go,” Will insisted, and tried to pull away, but Jem’s cool hand was cupping the back of his neck, and then there was the burn of a stele on his wrist, and the pain he had not even known he was feeling began to ebb. Jem let go of him with a small hiss of pain of his own; he had gotten some of the ichor on his fingers. Will paused, irresolute—but Jem waved him away, already applying his own stele to his hand.
    It was only a moment’s delay, but by the time Will reached his sister’s side, Gabriel had gotten there first. Gabriel had his hand under her chin, his green eyes flicking over her face. She was looking up at him with astonishment, when Will arrived and caught her by the shoulder.
    “Get
away
from my sister,” he barked, and Gabriel stepped back, his mouth thinning into a hard line. Gideon was hard on his heels, and they swarmed around Cecily as Will held her fast with one hand, drawing his stele with the other. She looked at him with flashing blue eyes as he carved a black
iratze
against one side of her throat, and a
mendelin
on the other. Her black hair had escaped from its braid, and she looked like the wild girl he remembered, fierce and unafraid of anything.
    “Are you hurt,
cariad
?” The word slipped out before he could stop it—a childhood endearment he had almost forgotten.
    “Cariad?”
she echoed, her eyes flashing disbelief. “I am quite unhurt.”
    “Not quite,” Will said, indicating her injured wrist and gashes on her face and hands, which had begun to close up as the
iratze
did its work. Anger swirled up inside him, so much that he did not hear Jem, behind him, begin to cough—usually a sound that would have lit him to action like a spark thrown into dry tinder. “Cecily, what could you possibly have been—”
    “That was one of the bravest things I’ve seen a Shadowhunter do,” interrupted Gabriel. He was not looking at Will but at Cecily, with a mixture of surprise and something else in his expression. There was mud and blood in his hair, as there was on all of them, but his green eyes were very bright.
    Cecily flushed. “I was only—”
    She broke off, her eyes widening as she looked past Will. Jem coughed again, and this time Will heard it; he turned just in time to see his
parabatai
slump to his knees on the ground.

3
T O THE L AST H OUR
    Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry
I can no more.
I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be
.
    —Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Carrion Comfort”
    Jem was leaning against the side of the Institute’s carriage, his eyes closed, his face as pale as paper. Will stood beside him, his hand tightly gripping Jem’s shoulder. Tessa knew as she hurried toward them that it was not just a brotherly gesture. His grip would